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Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds
- gaukes 6y agoCeres is one of the more interesting candidates for life in our solar system. Ceres is in the habitable zone for our solar system (although just barely), it's surface temperature is -30 F (eq. to winter in Greenland), and it's detected that the water on the surface is 20% carbon by mass (though that can mean a lot of things).
- api 6y agoThe question is whether there is a source of energy for that subsurface ocean. If it's geologically dead the entire thing could be uniformly quite cold. Unlike some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn it's not headed by gravitational tidal effects.
- baggy_trough 6y agoIf that's the case why would it be an ocean at all, rather than a block of ice?
- ojnabieoot 6y agoThe article said it was a brine ocean, so salinity or some other solute - even at Earth gravity and air pressure, highly saline water can have a freezing point as low as -20C.
- baggy_trough 6y agoThe maximum surface temperature on Ceres is -118C. How would you get to -20C without geological heating?
- api 6y agoPressure? Water unlike most materials expands when it freezes.
- darkerside 6y agoWhen you apply pressure to ice, does it melt or freeze? Google says, https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1593 https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1593
- ojnabieoot 6y agoThe idea of multicellular life on Ceres is implausible for the reasons you mentioned, but there could be something like archaebacteria or other extremophiles with very slow metabolisms and which don't reproduce very often. As it's a brine ocean, the water could be chemically "hot" enough that a form of life is sustainable in a bio-geological cycle. Here's an interesting article exploring the lowest possible temperature for life on earth (which is largely focused on vitrification blocking cellular metabolism but has both theoretical and empirical insights): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3686811/pdf/pone.0066207.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3686811/pdf/pon...
- op03 6y agoI had to stand around waiting for a bus in 0 F for a few years of my life. Did not detect any life around that bus stop.
- saagarjha 6y agoThis is an excellent microcosm of the problems searchers of extraterrestrial intelligence face.
- 618033988749894 6y agoThat was one late bus.
- nkrisc 6y agoYou didn't look closely enough. You were surrounded by it.
- orthecreedence 6y agoAre you an android?
- bzb4 6y ago0 degrees fahrenheit = -17.778 degrees celsius
- smithza 6y agoWhat of the lack of atmosphere and lack of active mantle/core? Solar energy has little chance of staying within the system.
- bjo590 6y agoIsn't surface temperature a good proxy value of the amount of energy inside the system?
- jayparth 6y agoWell not necessarily. The Martian equator can get as hot as 18C. It doesn't retain the heat (due to no atmosphere) and it gets cold like even a few centimeters off of the surface.
- Symmetry 6y agoThe potential lack of vulcanic and geological activity now is a big problem. For the first 700 millions years life on Earth depended on chemosynthesis and that's where the energy for that comes from. Presumably there could have been more active geology far in the past, though, possibly implying life that died out.
- toshk 6y agoI always wondered why we are overly focused on the conditions that created life on earth. Arguably it makes sense to see similar conditions lead to life. But do we really know enough to assume that's only way?
- freehunter 6y agoBecause it’s hard to detect life on other planets. It’s easier if we know what we’re looking for. We know where we came from, so it’s easier to detect.
- renewiltord 6y agoWell, look at it this way: you left your home in the morning for work, went to lunch, went back to work, met a friend for coffee, dropped by the office to pick up your stuff, then got home and found you didn't have your wallet. You know that, in the past when you lost your wallet, you dropped it somewhere or you left it behind somewhere. However, because you are a free individual and because the universe is full of possibilities (including the event that the quantum froth poofed your wallet away and created an identical one in your hedge), you can do practically anything now in search of your wallet. Do you: * Retrace your steps to see if your wallet is anywhere along the path * Call your mother and see if she has your wallet * Begin a global wallet-hunt in case the wallet was transported to Cuba Like most people you have an intuitive understanding of what to do: Given limited resources you should allocate them in order of decreasing likelihood of success. Most things do not lead to life. Our prior on "There is silicon-potassium self-replication on Charon" is pretty low because our prior on "X self-replication" is pretty low for most things. Try it out. Suggest an alternative and honestly set your priors on it, then condition those priors on the evidence that you have seen on Earth, and the limited evidence from the Moon and Mars. Now look at those posteriors for your alternative and compare it with the kind of life we know. Almost certainly microscopic, but if it isn't, you should publish.
- BurningFrog 6y agoEveryone agrees that (1) as far as we know, life can arise from a zillion different circumstances, and/but (2) the sane thing is to first look for it in environments similar to the only place we know has life.
- loosetypes 6y agoWould evolutionary timelines or cycles be slower in an overall colder planet? (Thinking of those interactive diagrams for temperature on the kinetic energy of molecules zooming around in closed space)
- clarkmoody 6y agoDid you ever read Dragon's Egg? It's a speculative hard sci-fi that posits ultra-fast evolution for life on the surface crust of a neutron star!
- loosetypes 6y agoInteresting! Thanks. No I have not. Although I was previously recommended Rocheworld by a former NASA researcher, with the note that Robert L. Forward made every effort to describe a scientifically plausible double planet. Incidentally, it looks like Dragon’s Egg is his only work available on Audible. I’ll add it to my list.
- raghava 6y ago> Dragon's Egg TIL! Oh, looks like this movie "Evolution" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(2001_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(2001_film) ) was also on those lines then!
- rbanffy 6y agoIt's an interesting idea, but I find characters developed on the surface of a neutron star will end up being implausibly flat, lacking any depth. (badum tish)
- clarkmoody 6y agoI see what you did there... Also, the book does describe a character's apprehension at climbing to the dizzying heights of a few millimeters off the surface.
- 6y ago
- walrus01 6y agoConsidering that there's organisms that live at ridiculous pressures, with absolutely no sunlight and at the extreme temperatures of deep sea volcanic vents, I would not be surprised at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent_microbial_communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent_microbial_co...
- crowbahr 6y agoThe question is can life arise in such an environment, or only migrate to one. That's yet to be determined as far as I know: extremophiles have all evolved from less tolerant life forms as far as I'm aware.
- eru 6y agoThough, of course, you might expect to see that, even if life can arise in extreme environments: It's uncontroversial that life is much denser in more hospitable environments. If the extreme environments are in regular contact with the hospitable environments, and if evolution is sufficiently random, you would expect over time that most organisms anywhere have an ancestor in the hospitable environment. Even if life can arise in the extreme environment.
- bitreality 6y agoWhat is the most hospitable environment? A tide pool? Also the most hospitable environment for genesis is likely different from the most hospitable environment for a complex ecosystem.
- Symmetry 6y agoFor life without photosynthesis, which takes a while to develop, some place with a lot of free chemical energy because the first replicators will be very inefficient. White and black smokers under the sea are usually put forward as candidates.
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- austincheney 6y ago-30F is too cold for Earth life though. Enceladus is known to have substantial warm salt water. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_liquid_water https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_liquid_wate...
- Tepix 6y ago-30F (-34°C) is the surface temperature. There are probably not many people who believe that Ceres has life on its surface.
- QuadrupleA 6y agoHmm... according to wikipedia Ceres' surface is 110 - 155 Kelvin, or a toasty -262 to -181°F. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet) Which makes sense, with little to no atmosphere. If that's correct I'm a little surprised this got voted up to top comment.
- MPSimmons 6y agoThe comment you replied to almost definitely relied on the data in the "Geology of Ceres" wikipedia entry[1]. This is from 1991, and was strictly an estimate. The Dawn probe in 2017[2] got a better measurement, of 110K-155K. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Ceres https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Ceres 2 - https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/ssbsite/documents/webpage/ssb_183286.pdf https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/ssbsite/docume...
- xxs 6y agoI read that -30F, converted to C (5/9 of -62, like -35) and ughh, no way. That "planet" is too far away.
- f_allwein 6y agoin case you’re wondering: That’s between -163,15 and -118,15 °C.
- lopmotr 6y agoYou really shouldn't put that 0.15 on the end. The numbers weren't that accurate to begin with so it gives the false impression that those digits mean something. I hope it doesn't feel like I'm picking on you but I can't help myself saying something because this is a pet peeve of mine. Rounding appropriately is taught in physics class at school but I think most people don't learn that or think it doesn't apply outside of class.
- Sharlin 6y agoNot sure why you were downvoted. The concept of significant digits is pretty important.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago> the water on the surface is 20% carbon by mass Sorry, can you explain what you mean by this? Are you using "water" figuratively for all liquid, as opposed to H2O?
- Symmetry 6y agoWe conventionally call the Earth's seas "water" despite the fact that they have a lot of dissolved CO2 and fish in them. Presumably Ceres's seas don't have anything like a fish but without microorganisms to scavenge they'll tend to have a lot of carbon containing compounds.
- thefounder 6y agoSource?
- colordrops 6y agoIt's not a planet is it? If Pluto is not a planet, Ceres certainly is not either.
- ceejayoz 6y agoThe first paragraph uses the term “dwarf planet”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoAt least until cancel culture demands a rename.
- overflow_error 6y agoyeah but dwarf planet is not a planet, this is like saying method is a function, outrageous
- Twisol 6y agoIf that bothers you, you'll love the nLab's page on the red herring principle :) > The mathematical red herring principle is the principle that in mathematics, a “red herring” need not, in general, be either red or a herring. > Frequently, in fact, it is conversely true that all herrings are red herrings. This often leads to mathematicians speaking of “non-red herrings,” and sometimes even to a redefinition of “herring” to include both the red and non-red versions. https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/red+herring+principle https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/red+herring+principle
- zajio1am 6y agoWell, i usually use 'soy meat' example, which is obviously not meat. The case where adjective moves meaning outside of boundaries of original meaning, instead of just making it more precise, is kind of perverse. Perhaps people should use hyphen to make it one term in cases where the meaning is not result of composition (e.g. 'dwarf-planet' and 'soy-meat' vs. 'big planet' and 'pork meat').
- nerfhammer 6y agoman, so many planets have subsurface oceans, there must be a lot of species of eyeless space whales across the universe
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- shakna 6y agoEarth might have a subsurface ocean as well [1], though I haven't found any follow up since 2014 on that one. [1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1253358 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1253358
- marcusverus 6y ago>They conclude that the mantle transition zone--410 to 660 km below the Earth's surface--acts as a large reservoir of water. Sadly there will be no eyeless space whales in our basement, given that the temperature at that depth on Earth is around 2,000° Celsius.
- Symmetry 6y agoThat sounds like water in hydrated minerals rather than liquid water? In terms of settling inner solar system asteroids where the sun bakes everything you're looking for material with as much easily extractable water as concrete to make a comfortable home.
- noizejoy 6y ago> whales across the universe and bowls of petunias
- abledon 6y agospaceX when? 2048?
- elliekelly 6y agoSomewhat related I saw it’s going to take NASA’s new Perseverance rover about 7 months to get to Mars and it’s traveling at something like 25,000 MPH. Since NASA had to take the planetary orbits and launch timing, etc. into account I’m assuming that’s the fastest ideal velocity for the rover but not necessarily the fastest possible. So I guess my question is, given that Ceres is so much further away than Mars, what’s the constraining factor for faster space travel? Safety? Fuel? Hardware? Technology? If Elon was going to spend every penny he has to get to Ceres as fast as possible, how would his billions best be spent?
- jcims 6y agoNuclear propulsion. I think a development program could be started from a planetary protection standpoint then hardened for standard missions.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dmurray 6y agoFaster is normally not all that important: it's much better to save fuel and send more stuff than to get there a few months earlier. Fuel costs vary roughly with delta-V, the total amount you have to accelerate or decelerate your spaceship. Because of the tyranny of the rocket equation, they aren't linearly proportionate to delta-V, but in general, if it takes more delta-V it's going to be harder and more expensive to send a spaceship there. Here's a map of the solar system by delta-V [0]. Good news is it's roughly equally difficult to get to Ceres as to get to Mars! It's further away, but it's smaller which means less decelerating when you get there. For your actual question...you can get faster routes with more fuel. We're pretty close to the limits of how big a rocket we know how to build and still get it to Mars (or Ceres) with a 2-ton payload (enough for a lander, a rover and a little fuel) using the most fuel-efficient route. If you want to get there faster, which might be important for manned missions, you need a smaller payload or a bigger rocket. Or the most likely solution - you launch lots of rockets and join up the payloads into a bigger spaceship in Earth orbit. If Elon's goal was to make a one-way trip to Ceres as fast as possible, he'd be doing mostly the same as he is now - focusing on being able to build lots of rockets and launch them cheaply. [0] https://imgur.com/WGOy3qT https://imgur.com/WGOy3qT
- JackFr 6y agoOwkwa beltalowda!
- outworlder 6y agoLots of water. No Cant to remember.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- outworlder 6y agoThere goes the water rationing narrative in The Expanse...
- ckuehl 6y agoThe authors of The Expanse published an article last year acknowledging and paying tribute to the mission ("How a NASA robot messed up our science fiction"): https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/02/dear-dawn-james-sa-corey-pays-tribute-nasa-ceres-mission/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/02/dear-dawn...
- EdwardDiego 6y agoLove them even more for that.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoThe book(s) acknowledges it's made of ice. You can't drink your entire habitat.
- jojobas 6y agoAll the water on Earth was drunk at some stage wasn't it?
- shkkmo 6y agoI suspect that isn't true, but it is an interesting question. There is a lot of water on the planet, some of it spends long periods locked up out of reach of drink ability. I would guess that at most water has been drunk multiple times, but that there is some miniscule a fraction that moved between icecap, permafrost and deep water table and has avoided being consumed by an animal since it arrived on earth. I would be interested to read a mathematical estimate of how many 9s of water on earth has been drunk at some point.
- martinpw 6y ago
- Animats 6y agoCeres is a good place for a lander and rover then. Might be some action there. Face it, Luna and Mars are boring, low-value real estate.
- vmception 6y agoUpper atmosphere of Venus could be high value, if we just shift the states and view the surface as deep underwater and the clouds as land.
- randomdude402 6y agoI thought the atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid. What makes it potentially high value?
- ncmncm 6y agoEarth-normal gravity, Earth-normal temperature, Earth-normal pressure, concentrated solar power, breathing air is buoyant, plastic and carbon fiber structural material--and breathing air and water--are convertable from atmosphere, cloud water is heavily enriched with deuterium. Way nicer than Mars. You can operate an unshielded nuke plant tethered some distance below your balloon habitat, no worries about leaks. We don't know whether humans can survive for long at Lunar or Martian gravity. Zero-G we know is a problem. So, Venus might be the only other notionally habitable planet.
- FailMore 6y agoThis is fking awesome!
- tus88 6y agoI wonder what kind of buglife lives down in the depths.
- ncmncm 6y agoMy first awareness of Ceres was from an article by Isaac Asimov titled, "The World Ceres". (Say it out loud.)
- interfixus 6y ago> Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and has its own gravity, enabling the Nasa Dawn spacecraft to capture high-resolution images of its surface Scratching my head. Trying as I may. But not making sense. [insert subthread about Gell-Mann amnesia here]
- mxcrossb 6y agoI was confused by this too. I wonder if it means that the spacecraft was able to enter into its orbit and circle around taking pictures, as opposed to one pass by
- martinpw 6y agoYes, clearly every asteroid has its own gravity. I guess what it should say is that it has a strong enough gravitational field to allow a spacecraft to be placed into orbit and have it stay there.
- hinkley 6y ago> Dwarf planet, believed to be a barren space rock, has an ‘extensive reservoir’ of brine beneath its surface, images show Believed by who? We already knew it was made substantially of ice. Isn't this just discovering that some of it is liquid? Wikipedia quotes a PDF from 2017 regarding the quantity of ice, and by then the fact of Ceres having so much ice had already been worked into the story line of The Expanse.
- mr_toad 6y agoPreviously it was thought to be mostly frozen and hydrated minerals (mud), without any substantial oceans.
- mrfusion 6y agoWhat provides the heat to keep it liquid?
- ncmncm 6y agoHas to be radioactives. Mainly, though, miles of ice makes a pretty good insulator.
- HenryKissinger 6y agoMagmatic activity in the mantle, obviously.
- swebs 6y agoIt's possible that the impact that caused the crater only liquefied the brine at the impact site.
- stx 6y agoIs this actually H2O water? I read the article but I am still unclear. I am often excited to hear that water was discovered on some planet or moon but its always a disappointment to learn that its liquid methane or some other liquid that is not actually H2O water.
- chc 6y agoI think you must be thinking of some other word — maybe the fact that "ice" doesn't necessarily refer to water ice. If a science article says "water," they generally mean water unless the author's phrasing is extraordinarily sloppy.
- renewiltord 6y agoWhat other kind of substance is called 'water'? As far as I know only H2O is described as water.
- edgyquant 6y agoWater usually means liquid H2O. Europa, for instance, isn't liquid water but ice that is squeezed and loosened to the point it acts like a liquid while still being well below freezing and basically just ice sand
- renewiltord 6y agoVery cool!
- bjo590 6y agoCeres is by and large H2O (by volume). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)#Internal_structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)#Internal_...
- gus_massa 6y agoThe main part is that they found some type of material that is made of table salt and water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrohalite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrohalite , real table salt and real water.
- sago 6y agoAll these worlds are yours except Ceres. Use them together. Use them in peace.
- arkanciscan 6y agoGreat news for colonies! All the water and table salt they need! Just have to watch out for Pokeshells...
- arkanciscan 6y agoNot one Oni player in the room? Y'all need to get out more.
- TheRealNGenius 6y agoThought this was about another planet elsewhere, didn’t realize they were referring to the dwarf planet
- acd 6y agoVery interesting observations! I think many planets may have life below the surface. The hot core of planets behave like a heat reactor. Somewhere between the hot planet core and cold planet surface there should be a balanced temperature a mix. That mix may have a temperature of 0-37C. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_core https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_core
- Chris2048 6y agoWe should be able to do the same on earth first. Where's our underground Polar habitats? I personally see Musks' Boring company" stuff as interesting as the rockets, I wish it where cheaper to build cities/tunnels underground.
- sgt 6y agoI can see NASA releasing some "Visions of the Future" new posters for Ceres: "Take your first scuba diving lessons on Ceres" "Swim with the briny undersea monsters of Ceres"
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- shadowprofile77 6y agoNitpicking, I know, but to call it "Planet Ceres" in the title is more than a bit wrong. This is a dwarf planet at best and is also often classified as a really big asteroid (the only one in the asteroid belt that's rounded by its own gravity). If even the much larger Pluto can't get the "Planet" title, Ceres hardly deserves to be called that in a headline from a major newspaper.
- saalweachter 6y agoI suppose the question is whether "dwarf" is a modifier to "planet" or whether "dwarf planet" is a compound word that cannot be split without losing meaning. I would lean toward the former -- if there was not room in the headline for "Dwarf planet Ceres", referring to it as "Planet Ceres" still adds information and clarifies helpfully. "Ceres" may not be familiar enough to most readers for them to instantly think, "Oh, they must be talking about the largest asteroid/eighth largest known dwarf planet", but adding "planet" makes it clear that we're talking about space stuff.
- linuxftw 6y agoIndeed, 'a dwarf something' is 'a something,' such as a 'dwarf star' or a 'dwarf tree.'
- nix23 6y agoNo, dwarf planet is a classification and NOT a modifier: https://solarstory.net/planets/ https://solarstory.net/planets/ EDIT: (Ceres) It is now considered as a "dwarf" planet, but is still labeled as an asteroid
- alehul 6y agoJust an FYI, your link uses dwarf planet as a modifier. From the Dwarf Planets section: "These planets are Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake." (Not commenting on whether this is correct in this comment, just what the link says).
- 6y ago